Trying to uninstall 180.20 drivers grrrrrrrr

[simbo]

"You are running a 32 bit version of NVIDIA uninstaller on a 64 bit system (Binary type I386)
Wrong version of uninstaller. Uninstaller exits now"

This comes up when I try to uninstall the 181.20 drivers (64bit international) downloaded from the Nvidia website a couple of weeks ago.
Has anyone had this trouble before? I Googled the above and it took me to an older forum where they suggested that after using device manager to delete the display adapter and drivers then go to the Windows SysWOW64 folder and rename any file that starts with nv (for nvidia I assume).I try to do this but Vista won`t let me rename or delete the files !!
I have been scratching my head for a week now since the 181.22 drivers appeared and can`t install them !!
Thanks in advance for any help provided,
Simbo

 

[simbo]

The title of the above thread should be 181.20 drivers,not 180.20.

Oops !

 

[AstaLaVista]

How are you trying to uninstall the drivers? are you doing it from Control Panel or from Device Manager?

 

[SIW2]

Hi simbo,

You might try uninstalling it by right clicking in Device Manager and select uninstall.

You could then use the free Driver Sweeper from here

Guru3D - Driver Sweeper (Setup) download from Guru3D.com

Hope it helps

SIW2

 

[simbo]

Thanks for replying all,I have tried both Control Panel and device manager but no luck so far.

 

[simbo]

Just tried what you suggested SIW2....no luck

 

[AstaLaVista]

This is really freakky... OK, try this:

Download the latest driver from Nividia website, make sure it is for your OS & card just to be on the safe side.

Install the new driver just downloaded on top of the one you have now (*) (right click on file and "Run as Administrator"), reboot the pc if asked, after you are back at the desktop, go to the Device Manager or Control Panel and uninstall the drivers, DO NOT reboot, you must also uninstall the PhysX drivers as well, reboot now, after you're back at the desktop, run a registry cleaner (CCleaner is what I use) just to get rid of any remants of those drivers.

(*) Doing this is usually a no-no because some corruption with the files may occur but, desperate times calls for desperate measures!

Now that you should have the std vga drivers, go back to the downloaded file and install as Administrator one more time and it should install the latest drivers.

Hopefully this will work for you.

 

[simbo]

No luck again Asta la Vista,as soon as I try to install the 181.22s I get the "32 bit nvidia uninstaller on a 64 bit system" as above.

 

[AstaLaVista]

Rats...

Can you try uninstalling the PhysX drivers first and then the card drivers? Just want to see what happens if you do that.

Ok, I found this while googling your problem, it appears to be for XP users but it has something there for Vista x64 as well... might be worth checking it out.

Try manually uninstalling the driver by using the following procedure:

1. Control Panel=>Windows Update=>Change Settings=>"Download updates but let me choose whether to install them".
2. Download the latest driver from the nvidia website. Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers
3. Go to Device Manager, select your display adaptor, and uninstall it, choose to also delete drivers when prompted.
4. Reboot computer into safe mode by pressing f8 when the computer boots, when prompted to install new display driver choose "never install a driver for this device"
5. Navigate to c:\windows\system32\drivers\ and rename the file nvlddmkm.sys to nvlddmkm_old.sys. Take note of the date of this file
6. Navigate to c:\windows\system32 and rename any other file of the same date as nvlddmkm.sys which begins with the letters 'nv'
**ADDED FOR CLARITY***
For examples:
nvcplui.exe become nvcplui_old.exe
nvd3dumx.dll becomes nvd3dumx_old.exe
etc..etc..etc..Repeat for all files with the same date as the file you found in step 5, they begin with the letters 'nv'
If it is too tedious to rename all the files, you can simply delete them, or move them to a different folder.
*********************
6a. For 64bit Vista, repeat step 6 in c:\windows\sysWOW64
7. Reboot to normal Windows, if prompted again to install a driver choose "never install a driver for this device.
8. Install the driver which you downloaded from the nvidia website.

Thank StickyWulf for that.

Found another one that might be your solution, this guys went way beyond the call of duty if you ask me

Hi all

I had the same problem while installing the 2 x Geforce 9600GT giving me the same error messages as shown above.Tried everything I gould thing of for hours THEN IT HIT ME if the problem is that it's tring to uninstall the old cards files but is not reading them correctly,what would happen if there was never any trace of nvidia on my computer at all.

SO i DELETED EVERY SINGLE FILE,CERTICATE,REGISTRY, THAT i COULD FIND ON MY COMPUTER MEANING THAT MY COMPUTER NEVER HEARD OF NVIDIA IN IT'S LIFE ,,Restarted my computer without any graphic cards in it so that it wouldn't try to download new files at restart,,bubble checked everything and went to systems settings and turned off INSTALL NEW DRIVERS AUTOMATICAL.

Shut down the PC and placed the nivida graphics card in and powered her up..reset the resalution to my proper settings as it onlt picked up 1 monitor since the card at this point has no driver installed.

And guess what the new driver installed without any problems what so ever.PROBLEM SOLVED This took some work and a couple of hours but it was worth it in the end.I hope this helps most of you if not all,word of advice but,,,If your not sure about what your doing get professional help becasue if you delete the wrong registry keys or files you will/may damage your system or programs won't work,,,So I can't stress enough be sure you know what your doing as this is not for the beginner user.

Good luck and let us know if that helped!

 

[simbo]

Thanks ALV,I have tried that mate,it is in my original thread that Vista won`t let me rename or delete any of the files begining with nv.
Perhaps the only answer is a clean install of vista and start with the 181.22 drivers.

 

[AstaLaVista]

Did you tried the 2nd quote option as well?

 

[simbo]

I didnt think you could get a picture to your monitor if you removed your graphics card so you would not see anything to remove !!

 

[AstaLaVista]

More than likely, your onboard video card will take over but, even if you don't have an onboard video card, you can still Disable the Auto Install drivers so it won't install anything and try it this way.